Supporters of a nontraditional medical freedom movement who’ve placed their faith in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are frustrated he hasn’t done more to push their agenda. But people close to Kennedy have been telling them to be patient. They say he is committed to the aims of the Make America…
PBS News Weekend’s Ali Rogin spoke with KFF Health News contributor Michelle Andrews about what some people with missing limbs consider a disparity in health insurance coverage: Though a knee replacement likely would be covered, a prosthetic knee isn’t always. A prosthetic device can be subject to cost caps and an amputee may be required…
Even by rural hospital standards, Keokuk County Hospital and Clinics in southeastern Iowa is small. The 14-bed hospital, in Sigourney, doesn’t do surgeries or deliver babies. The small 24-hour emergency room is overseen by two full-time doctors. CEO Matt Ives wants to hire a third doctor, but he said finding physicians for a rural area…
By JEFF GOLDSMITH Jeff wrote this article for Hospitals & Health Networks in the July 5, 1998 edition. He republished it this week on his substack calling it a “27th anniversary edition”. It’s an enlightening piece, but as you read it please ask yourself. What, if anything, has changed, and did anything get better?–Matthew Holt…
The Host Emmarie Huetteman KFF Health News Emmarie Huetteman, senior editor, oversees a team of Washington reporters, as well as “Bill of the Month” and KFF Health News’ “What the Health?” She previously spent more than a decade reporting on the federal government, most recently covering surprise medical bills, drug pricing reform, and other health policy debates…
After the Senate voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary, supporters of his “Make America Healthy Again” movement cheered at having a champion in the federal government. Now the grumbling has begun. Some of Kennedy’s allies say he’s become almost inaccessible since his confirmation and complain that he’s made…
The National Institutes of Health’s sweeping cuts of grants that fund scientific research are inflicting pain almost universally across the U.S., including in most states that backed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. A KFF Health News analysis underscores that the terminations are sparing no part of the country, politically or geographically. About 40%…
Everyone knows that eating healthy is good for your health. But should we think of food as a type of medicine? A paper by Ridberg et al. (2025) examines public perceptions of different interventions to get people to eat better to improve their health. Health systems are increasingly deploying Food Is Medicine interventions, which incorporate…
If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.” Overcome by worries, Lynette Isbell dialed a mental health hotline in April 2022. She wanted to talk to someone about her midlife troubles: divorce, an empty nest, and the demands…
Michele Andrews had been seeing her internist in Northampton, Massachusetts, a small city two hours west of Boston, for about 10 years. She was happy with the care, though she started to notice it was becoming harder to get an appointment. “You’d call and you’re talking about weeks to a month,” Andrews said. That’s not…